Soccer Coach Weekly

Join John Allpress, former assistant head of academy player and coach development at Tottenham Hotspur and Aaron Allpress, strength and conditioning coach and professional squash player, as they explore how to get the most out of pre-season with your team, incorporating the physical, mental and technical aspects of the game. This podcast is the audio version of a Soccer Coach Weekly webinar. If yo...

John Allpress is ex-assistant head of academy player and coach development at Tottenham Hotspur and a Former national coach at the English FA. He has decades of coaching experience, and a keen interest in how players learn and take on information. Here, he shares his knowledge on how youngsters learn, and how we, as coaches, can use that information to help them get better.  Find this in written f...

Moritz Kossmann is DStv Diski Challenge coach and head of youth at Cape Town City in South Africa. Here, he speaks to Soccer Coach Weekly about the skills of covering and recovering – how the approach to them differs depending on position, how we sell the skills as positive actions and the role leadership and communication plays...

Moritz Kossmann is DStv Diski Challenge coach and head of youth at Cape Town City in South Africa. Here, he speaks to Soccer Coach Weekly about the skills of challenging - how it has changed over the years, the role of strength in the challenge and the information that goes into decision-making around challenging…

Moritz Kossmann is DStv Diski Challenge coach and head of youth at Cape Town City in South Africa. Soccer Coach Weekly caught up with Moritz to discuss the crucial skill of intercepting.  He covers whether it’s a natural action for players, how important communication is alongside it, and how players can build up their knowledge around it as they progress...

Moritz Kossmann defines the act of marking as "the act of tracking the movements of an opponent player and looking to close them down in a 1v1 situation or to intercept the ball as they are receiving or are about to receive the ball". Moritz - DStv Diski Challenge coach and head of youth at Cape Town City - speaks to SCW about what marking looks like for different positions, the decision...

For Moritz Kossmann, pressing is the primary defensive action in soccer. It is, in his words, “an attempt at putting pressure on an opponent who has the ball so that they can't progress the ball up the field easily". Moritz - who has now moved on from his role at Ubuntu Football Academy to become DStv Diski Challenge coach and head of youth at Cape Town City - sat down with Steph Fairbai...

Passing is more than just transferring the ball from one player to the other. At the elite levels, in particular, it is like a secret language, full of non-verbal signals and triggers, underpinned by players' ability to see the bigger picture in their heads. Moritz - who has now moved on from his role at Ubuntu Football Academy to become DStv Diski Challenge coach and head of youth at Cape To...

Moritz Kossmann defines turning as: “A change of direction on the ball while you are in possession of the ball". Moritz is a coach at Ubuntu Football Academy in Cape Town, where he coaches the U21s, who play in the third tier of South African football, and oversees the senior section, made up of U18s and U16s. Having previously discussed receiving the ball, moving with it and finishing, he no...

Goals win games. But attempting to finish, never mind actually scoring, isn’t easy to do. Moritz Kossmann is a coach at Ubuntu Football Academy in Cape Town, where he coaches the U21s - who play in the third tier of South African football - and oversees the senior section, made up of U18s and U16s. In our May 5 and May 26 issues, he spoke to us about receiving the ball and moving with it. This tim...

When to do it, what parts of the foot to use and how underloads aid attackers' dribbling development. Moritz Kossmann shares his expertise on moving with the ball...

Receiving is such a vital skill in soccer. A good first touch can beat a player in an instant, get a team out of trouble or create a chance on goal. But how can we support players to improve their receiving? Moritz Kossmann is a coach at Ubuntu Football Academy in Cape Town. There, he coaches the U21s, who play in the third tier of South African football, and oversees the senior section, made up o...

As a player, Joanna Boyles Fennema performed at the highest level. She spent her four college years with the North Carolina Tar Heels, represented the U17 US national team and played for the Orlando Pride in the NWSL. Alongside success, Fennema’s playing days came with a lot of challenges – she was drafted by the Boston Breakers just before the team folded, suffered two ACL injuries while at colle...

Mark Jenkins is the U15s lead coach at Weston-super-Mare AFC, a semi-professional club based on the southwest coast of England. Having been ready to keep working with his current crop of players for a few years, Mark was told that he would be given a new group for the 2023-24 season. It spurred him to start early with his season planning, and give him the best chance of getting the most out of his...

Sarah Brady had aspirations of making it as a player. She went through Everton’s academy before playing for her beloved Liverpool for a brief time, and then moving to Leeds United for a short spell. When, she says, her "body didn’t really want to comply with the ambition", she took a step into coaching. It led her to the USA 14 years ago, where she has “done everything, from tying the sh...

Matt Spear has had numerous different lives in soccer – as a player at NCAA Division I program Davidson College, a sports marketer, returning to his alma mater as a full-time coach for 18 years, and president and general manager for the third-tier US pro side Richmond Kickers. During his time at the Kickers, a number of things collided, resulting in Matt experiencing what he calls a "dark dep...

Katie Smith, based in Memphis, Tennessee, started coaching straight out of high school, alongside playing at community college. Now, in a situation that might sound familiar to a lot of coaches trying to make their way, Katie juggles numerous roles. She coaches at Collierville High School and Collierville Middle School, has two youth teams at Lobos Rush, is a volunteer assistant at Northwest Missi...

Kyle Martyn is senior girls’ academy director for the Ukrainian Nationals Soccer Club in Pennsylvania, the place where he grew up. Martyn played high school and college soccer in the state before going professional for a few years.  Now, as a coach, he gets to give back to the game he says was such an integral part of his childhood.   SCW caught up with Kyle at the United Soccer Coaches convention...

James Wagenschutz is an applied sports scientist and sports performance coach who has been in soccer for almost 25 years.  He holds a USSF A license and has used it to coach in the college game, including notable stints as assistant men’s soccer coach at Colorado College and Regis University, and his daughter’s U5s team.  He is now a coach educator for United Soccer Coaches and the USSF, and runs...

Dr Haroot Hakopian got into coaching by accident when he suffered a significant knee injury - tearing his ACL, MCL and PCL - and requiring four different operations. A move into coaching followed, alongside entering education. Thirty years later, he is still involved in, and loving, both worlds. Dr Hakopian celebrated 20 years as an AP English teacher and girls’ soccer coach at Winston Churchill H...

A love for the work of his college coaches was what led Jeremy Tosaya to go into the profession himself. Jeremy coached the college game for 18 years, including a notable seven-year stint with Dakota Wesleyan University, before moving on to coach in club soccer. Since Covid, Jeremy’s full-time job is outside of coaching, but he continues in a part-time role as director of coaching for Nebraska Sta...

In her senior year at Shawnee Mission West High School Kansas, Sarah Gonzalez wrote in her yearbook that, in five years’ time, she would be back at the school, teaching math and coaching soccer. Well, after playing soccer at the University of Kansas and then taking on a junior varsity role, Gonzalez has made her dream come true. She is now 18 years into her time at Shawnee as both a math teacher a...

Tom Shields is the technical director, boys’ ECNL director and USL2 head coach at STA Soccer in Randolph, New Jersey. Tom was formerly coach of Hull City Ladies and the University of Hull, in his native England. He was also an assistant and NCAA Division I title-winning coach at Central Connecticut State University, and director of player performance and pedagogy at Rutgers University. He also hol...

The first team Kai Edwards ever coached was a group of under-12s that included two players who would go on to be US World Cup stars: Kristen Press and Whitney Engen. He is currently head coach at the Southern Utah Thunderbirds, leading the team to its most successful ever season in 2022. In between those coaching gigs, Edwards, in his own words, "worked, competed, failed, got dropped out, and...

Steph Fairbairn joined her first soccer team as an eight-year-old, back in 2001. Then, the women's game in England trailed behind in participation and attendances - so much so that, in 2006, Steph was part of a double-figure crowd for a top-flight game, chatting in the bar with England players Jill Scott, Fara Williams and Rachel Unitt. The current landscape is very different. WSL crowds are...